As you surf the Web, information is being collected about you. Web tracking is not 100% evil — personal data can make your browsing more efficient; cookies can help your favorite websites stay in business. But, says Gary Kovacs, it’s your right to know what data is being collected about you. He unveils a Firefox add-on, Collusion, to do just that. (Update: Collusion is now called Lightbeam.)
Revelations about government surveillance have motivated a lot of reactions, some of which take into account that we gain something for some of the data we give up in our day-to-day lives. But the transaction is different when the government is involved.
This one-click personality test analyses your Facebook Likes to generate a prediction of your psychological profile. It was developed by David Stillwell and Michal Kosinski (the University of Cambridge Psychometrics Centre) in collaboration with myPersonality project.
Intelligence services collect metadata on the communication of all citizens. Politicians would have us believe that this data doesn’t say all that much. A reader of De Correspondent put this to the test and demonstrated otherwise: metadata reveals a lot more about your life than you think.
While you’ve likely never heard of companies like Yesware, Bananatag, and Streak, they almost certainly know a good deal about you. Specifically, they know when you’ve opened an email sent by one of their clients, where you are, what sort of device you’re on, and whether you’ve clicked a link, all without your awareness or consent.
Not long ago, our blockbuster business books spoke in unison: Trust your gut. The secret to decision-making lay outside our intellects, across the aisle in our loopy right brains, with their emo melodramas and surges of intuition.
Ashkan Soltani, a well-respected expert on consumer privacy, recently commented that perhaps online do not track efforts should be replaced by the goal of do not surprise. Transparency is critical, but new tracking methods are rarely disclosed in privacy notices and consumers have limited ability to control or prevent their use.
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